


Quiver of Arrows

by HarvestHoneymoon



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Adventure, Angst, Drug Use, Friendship, Multi, Mystery, POV Third Person, Romance, Smoking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 10:59:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8141425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarvestHoneymoon/pseuds/HarvestHoneymoon
Summary: When Anna Lovett awakes from cryostasis in the year 2287, Shaun isn't the only one missing from Vault 111. Her best friend, Hogarth Powell, has mysteriously disappeared, and while all evidence and memory points to his death, Annie thinks otherwise, even in the post-apocalypse. And so, with only her silver tongue and a 10mm, she aims to find him, no matter what it takes.





	1. A Rude Awakening

In an instant, it seemed, the grass had browned. The water had soured. The trees had lost their leaves permanently. And Sanctuary Hills, covered in radioactive ivy and mosses, had been bereft of the life common in 2077.

It had never been an instant, as much as Anna Lovett wished it had. It had been 210 years.

Last she could recall, Shaun had been weeping from the sudden change in temperature, in poor Hoagie’s arms, surrounded by a sea of navy, white, and yellow… But someone had taken him. Taken them both. Their cryostasis pod was empty when she’d woken up, though she could’ve sworn _someone_ got left behind.

The rest of the Vault, in all its squalor, had mostly been a blur. The clinical safe haven had gone dingy and stained with Radroach feces and dirt from the hill Vault-Tec had built the fallout shelter into. Frost had climbed up the walls and windows of the rows of pods. Water had leaked from the ceilings, and skeletons had littered the floors. Even the elevator had creaked with her weight from disuse.

And while the Pip-Boy she’d snatched from a scientist’s corpse had been functional, as could’ve be seen by Vault Boy’s sunny smile informing her all her limbs were functional, her posture had remained stiff. Her hands had still shaken, even with a gun safely in their grasp.  They only had stopped when the dark from outside had ceased to blind her, and had given way to an all too tender night sky, for what should’ve been a long deceased land. The smell of petrichor, rust and aluminum had filled her nostrils.

At the sight, Anna had dropped to her knees. Her mouth had opened and curled, almost in a snarl, but without any real bite to it. Her breath had forced itself out of her lungs. And, as much as she had wanted them to, no tears came. She’d never been close enough to the community to warrant them.  That and strangely… The cul-de-sac was inhabited. From her counting, five people had taken roost in the yellow house across the street from what used to be hers, moving to a campfire with a black iron cooking pot closer to the neck of the neighborhood.

The realization of the game changing was what got her standing again. If people were still alive out in this hellhole, her mind had come to figure, no one would ever believe her story. The whole thing would probably be considered a fit of madness, for all she knew. And in the off chance people believed her, knowing _her generation_ was the one that had ended the world, the Vault Suit she wore was nothing to be proud of. It was a Black Spot on what little credibility she had left. There were no buts about it.

So, stiff-limbed, Anna forced herself upright and set to poking about the elevator control booth and the duckling trail of suitcases behind it, hoping for something to make her more inconspicuous. The only thing close to her size was a laundered, blue dress, easily hemmed should she find a needle and thread, but still too clean, she felt. Her amber eyes fell on the trail down to Sanctuary Hills instinctually, after changing clothes and stashing the ichor stained suit away… Then twinkled as an idea came to her.

Taking a few steps back, she ran to the start of the slope and let herself drop, rolling down the hill and collecting the moist soil of the trail. If she was lucky, she might get a few bruises and cuts, and muss her clean, red hair further, making her look even more natural in the brave ne—That was a stream, she was tumbling towards a stream, ABORT MISSION, _ABORT_ —

Anna shifted position mid roll, so she slid coffin style on the ground, and stuck her legs forward, pivoting her ankles to slow her descent. She stopped just short of a rotten, wooden bridge, and breathed, checking her Pip-Boy.

The Geiger counter’s hand flicked up towards a reading of <1 rads.

Carefully, the former housewife rose from the ground, her knees and elbows already feeling bruised, and gently pressed her foot on the first plank, testing her weight. The wood moaned in protest.

That wasn’t a good sign. She was only 140 lbs; last she’d seen a scale.

She looked to the left and right of the bridge. No dice.

So with a few more steps back and her hands balled into determined fists, Anna ran and cleared the bridge, breaking a plank with her landing, but scrambling away just in time to watch the piece fall into the stream. The shiver from before returned to her frame, with the new adrenaline coursing through her veins.

In the distance, the faint ‘fsss’ of a Mr. Handy thruster hummed, causing Anna to make for the semi-ruined picket fences of her neighbors.

‘Oh, wonderful, so robots still exist,’ she thought. ‘That’s… Good and bad, mostly good.’

It meant her skillset wasn’t completely useless, even if it was the ruined future.

There was a good chance this robot wasn’t hers, though. Codsworth probably wouldn’t have lasted a day in a place like this, though whether this was due to the filth or people having to scavenge to get by was hard to say. And yet, as she crept behind her neighbors’ yards, clear of debris and with notably cleaner patches of fence in some places, she heard this:

“Mister Garvey, I must say, if I had a mouth, I would be salivating. That Molerat stew looks positively delicious!” Two laughs followed.

“Cod, I’m tellin’ you, y’really oughta get your brownnose readings checked,” a Southern voice replied. “Y’might get beaver fever if you aren’t careful!”

“Hey, Sturges, leave him be,” a lower voice told the other. “At least _someone_ likes my cooking.”

“Besides, Mr. Sturges, I can assure you,” the Mr. Handy replied. “Beavers have been extinct for quite some time in this region of the United States. I have a 0% risk of contracting such, being robotic, and while I appreciate your concerns for my health, I find it somewhat misplaced.”

“It’s just a figure of speech, Jarvis,” the man named Sturges shook his head. “I’m pokin’ a little fun at ya, is all.”

“Oh, I see… I ought to index the colloquialism so this doesn’t happen again,” the robot laughed sheepishly. “Forgive me; my internal dictionary’s still catching up, even after Mr. Powell came out of the Vault…”

“Don’t worry about it too much, Codsworth,” Mister Garvey assured him. “There’s still a lot to get used to.”

A dog whined besides them, loud enough for the diners to laugh.

“I know, boy, I know,” Sturges spoke up affectionately. “Even if Garvey’s cookin’ ain’t the best, his food’s better than nothin’, just be patient…”

Anna, white as a sheet, peeked over the fence to get a better look at the party. Sure enough, a rusted, dented Mr. Handy flitted hither and thither around the fire, checking on the other members of the group, while a tall, well-built man in a tan uniform and hat spooned out the meal, and another man in a pompadour and a mechanic’s uniform watched them. She couldn’t help but gape.

Somehow, through a stroke of luck, Codsworth and… Hoagie had survived. They’d survived the nuclear apocalypse. All three of them!

Despite this, though, she remained hidden in the brush. She had no idea who these other people were, and even if Hoagie had gotten out, she didn’t know if he was still alive. It didn’t feel right for him to be, after…

The faint sound of a gunshot rang out in her thoughts.

She shook her head and pressed forwards, letting her dress catch and tear in some places to add to the illusion of her not being a Vault Dweller. If Codsworth didn’t recognize her, or he didn’t persuade them she was harmless, she had to have a backup, after all. That and it’s not like she was going to stick around; being in Sanctuary Hills still made her feel anxious, even after 210 years of being out of commission. She just… needed more ammo for her 10mm, maybe some way to cook the spare Radroach meat she’d harvested and she’d be fine. Yeah, she’d be just fine.

That is if she could actually _find anything_ in any of the houses. Every single one on the left side of the road had been picked clean of stuff, save for some abnormally large dead flies and roaches, and a couple terminals connected to safes. These, oddly, hadn’t been touched, let alone hacked into, so she made quick work of them and harvested their contents when she found them. By the time she made it around the bend and started down the right side houses, she had a good handful of bottle caps and prewar money, a few boxes of ammo, some Stimpaks and RadAway, and some miscellaneous valuables she could probably sell, should currency still hold weight.

Anna decided, however, not to enter the inhabited home, or even bother with the party. They had a dog, which she didn’t have the heart to shoot but could probably kill her, they _definitely_ had better guns than her (the flies had some pretty gross, burned holes in their thoraxes, obviously the work of some kind of laser weapon), probably didn’t take kindly to stealing or intruders… And the abandoned Red Rocket up the road seemed a bit more her style. After everything, she wasn’t really in as personable a mood as she thought she’d be.

With this change of plans, she cut across the backyard of a blue house two away from theirs, climbed over the fence and broken stone wall just beyond it, and slid down the cliff to the streambed. She passed by their water purifier, and reluctantly moseyed her way through the river, her Geiger counter clicking up to 10+ Rads, then clambered up the opposite cliff side and sat down, gasping for air.

As she applied RadAway to her system and decompressed, a small smile came up on her face, triumphant and lopsided. It was a brief flicker; there a moment, gone the next, (as the smell of wet, dead dog and human overpowered her senses a moment after it came) but it had been there nonetheless.

Any kind of progress, in a place like this, was progress, after all. And considering her disadvantages?

Annie couldn’t be happier.


	2. From the Dark

When Annie woke the next morning, a gentle rain had come and gone over the Red Rocket Truck Stop, sending petrichor into the air like a thick, winter’s fog. With a slow rub of her eyes and a quiet yawn, she rose from a dirty mattress on the floor, and looked around the room; the morning sun had just begun to peek over the horizon, still the same as ever, despite the desolate land it stretched over languidly. 

Despite all that had happened the night before, the world around her still seemed like a dreamscape, bathed in the red glow of sunrise. Much like the Vault, the gas station sat neglected and caked with grime from old, forgotten scuffles and infestations, but where the Vault suffocated the former housewife on awakening, the Red Rocket kept to itself, allowing her to navigate it freely, albeit with careful, slow movements.

For a reason she couldn’t quite explain… Annie didn’t feel as welcome here as she had once had. And while the sunrise tried to lull her into a sense of comfort, with its soft, salmon clouds, she couldn’t watch for too long. Her eyes fell on the road instead.

It took five minutes of stolid vigil for anything to appear, but with patience, a skinny German Shepherd with a worn, leather collar loped up the road, maw red with blood. On reaching the mouth of the gas station, he slowed to a stop, sniffing intently, then breached the steel perimeter, nose low to the ground. Annie’s breath caught in her throat.

It was the dog from the night before. The dog that belonged to the scavengers.

Anna looked down to her mattress, a hand balling into a loose fist. Her pistol peeked from underneath her pillow, just as drowsy as she was, but before she could reach it, the dog stood in the doorway, staring at her. She cast her eyes to the floor immediately, raising her unoccupied hand above her head and slowly lowering herself to the dog’s height.

The dog, however, didn’t wait for her. In a moment, he was in her face, smelling her freckled nose, cheeks, and chin, and dislodging her dirty, red bangs from her forehead with his nose. His muzzle stank of plaque and day old copper. A gag almost came from her throat, but a strange sound from outside put it, and the German Shepherd’s investigation, on hold.

Annie’s cheeks paled. Her hand found the grip of the gun, as the dog whirled around. 

A horrible chattering, like an imp fresh from hell, erupted from the side of the gas station. The dog snarled and raised his hackles, before launching himself onto the creature and boring his fangs deep into its jugular. Annie rose, as the creature shrieked in agony, nearly droppint the pistol at the sight. Whatever had emerged from the ground had the looks of a mangy, sausage-shaped rat that decided it had enough of being eaten by everything, for the rest of eternity _._ With two rows of thick teeth, spines all up and down its back, and beady, white eyes, it made Annie’s blood run cold, even as she fired a couple rounds into its veiny abdomen.

With Lernaean persistence, two more molerats emerged from the earth with their kin’s death, and then another two, but all fell to tooth, V.A.T.S., and lead despite their greater numbers. By the time it was over, her eyes were wide and her hands shook, her hold on the gun white knuckled and taunt. The only way Annie realized she’d taken out the nest was when the dog started dragging the corpses to her, tail wagging proudly. She’d gaped only for a moment, then looked over her shoulder, through the glass of the other door leading inside the gas station.

A campfire site with a large spit sat just outside. Her stomach growled, like clockwork.

Dazed, the former housewife made her way over, dragging the molerat corpses after her, and set to work almost immediately. Now that the rain was gone and the wood of the Commonwealth was dead from overexposure to radiation, the fire she needed to reap the spoils of her encounter roared to life without much trouble. 

Carving the corpses of the mutant rats wasn’t _as_ much of a walk in the park, but she managed, eventually getting them on the spit and roasting them. They were unseasoned and pungent as the flames lapped at their sides, sure, but if it was food that would keep her alive, she was more than happy to be a beggar over a chooser.

In Annie’s occupation, though, she hadn’t noticed the dog had wandered off back to Sanctuary Hills, and within a matter of minutes, brought along the man in uniform from before. He had a soldier’s walk, quiet as the grave, so she didn’t notice him until he spoke to her directly.

“Good morning, ma’am.”

Annie about jumped out of her skin, but swallowed her fear and smiled.

“A good morning to you too, sir,” Annie replied, her voice clear and Trans-Atlantic. “Is this your dog?”

She gestured to the German Shepherd, as she turned the spit. The dog wagged his tail in acknowledgment.

“Not exactly,” the man in uniform laughed, with a smile like sunlight. “He’s more a nice stray than anybody’s pet.”

“Oh, I’m not sure you know the half of it!” she giggled. “He was a wonderful help disposing of these horrible _molerats,_ this morning. I just had to wonder, with the collar he has on.”

Internally, Annie sweated bullets as she held the conversation. How much had changed over 210 years? Was she using the right slang, if it was slang at all? Could he even understand her accent? And if any of this turned out not in her favor, what would he do if he figured out who she was?

Before she got too far along on that train of thought, though, the man in uniform’s smile softened with relief.

“Glad to hear it, ma’am. Are you new to these parts?”

“That I am, actually,” she replied, slowing her turning. “I’m from around the Salem area, but I found the sea a bit too dangerous for my liking, so I moved out here not too long ago. I’m afraid I don’t plan on staying long.” 

She offered him a kind smile in return, to try and soften any social bumps she might’ve hit, using what was probably an archaic name. He seemed to take it well though.

“You’re from that far east?” he asked, raising an untrimmed eyebrow. “Wow. That’s one heck of a trip to make all on your own, especially if you aren’t going to stick around.”

The man in uniform offered her a gloved hand to shake.

“I’m Preston Garvey of the Minutemen, by the way.”

She reciprocated his offer gently, stepping away from the spit.

“Anna Lovett. A pleasure, Mr. Garvey.”

“The pleasure’s all mine,” he entreated with a warm tone.

She put on her best ‘humble wife’ blush, with the compliment.

“Well, aren’t you a gentleman?” Annie cooed. “We don’t get many men like you out here, these days.”

“Never hurts to have manners,” he figured, modest.

Annie nodded, and prodded the meat on the spit, before looking to him again.

“Mr. Garvey,” she inquired, with a gentle bat of her eyelashes. “might I ask you something?”

“Certainly, ma’am,” he offered. “What’s on your mind?”

“I’d like to move to a city if I can manage,” she wove her question carefully. “There’s not much going on in Salem in terms of nightlife, I’m afraid. Do you have any recommendations?”

Preston opened his mouth, then frowned, and thought it over. Annie kicked herself mentally.

“Well, ma’am, if you want me to be honest,” he started. “Not a lot of the cities you find these days are that great.”

“Oh dear, that’s a shame,” she replied, sounding saddened. “Whatever for?”

“Diamond City, the closer of the two from here, isn’t fond of the Minutemen,” he explained. “It’s cleaner than Goodneighbor, up by the Charles, but it’s not the most progressive place. No ghouls allowed, and they shoot synths on sight.”

“What about Goodneighbor?” she prodded, tilting her head in interest.

“Goodneighbor’s a whole other can of worms,” he admitted with a sigh. “It’s full of Triggermen, chems, and criminals. Their mayor’s more pro the Minutemen and interested in equality, but he’s got some… _Interesting_ policies to keep himself in power. Policies I’m not too fond of.”

“Oh my,” Annie gasped. “I’ll be certain to keep clear of it, then.”

“Could you be a dear and mark Diamond City on my map?” she then asked, extending her dainty, left wrist to him. “I’d like to visit it and make my choice there.”

 With a pair of well worn, thick fingered hands, Preston set an approximate marker on the Pip Boy’s map, then let her arm go, folding an arm and pointing to the contraption.  
  
”It should be about there,” he told her. “There’s signs around if you can’t find it, and the outside’s swarmed with guards and Eyebots. So long as you don’t cause any trouble, they should let you in just fine.”  
  
”Why thank you,“ she started. She didn’t finish though, as an idea popped in her head.

“Mr. Garvey, why don’t you take one of these molerats with you back to your settlement?” she offered, hoisting up one of the corpses without fully anticipating the weight. Before she could fully topple over, Preston caught the tail end of it, and looked at her, surprised.

“Are you sure?” he asked, furrowing his brows a bit. “You killed these yourself, didn’t you?”

“Well, yes, I did,” she agreed. “But you don’t find kindness like that in the Commonwealth these days. Consider it a token of my appreciation.”

"In that case,” he supposed, taking the full carcass from her hands and hoisting it with ease. “I’ll take it. Thank you, ma’am.”

“It’s already been butchered,” she informed him cheerily. “Just cut away what you need and do with it what you will. I have to get back to roasting, I’m afraid.”

“Alright, I’ll leave you to it,” Preston nodded. “Have a good day, Ms. Lovett. Thanks again.”

With that, Preston left with the dead molerat slung over his shoulder and Annie breathed a sigh of relief. Somehow, someway, she’d managed to come off as a Wastelander. Her heart raced in her chest as she looked at her map, and then east.

Far beyond her line of sight, the Emerald of the Commonwealth shimmered in the morning light.

**~*~*~*~**

The August night air hung heavy on the dirt streets of Diamond City, warning all those awake of oncoming rain. High above, lightning shot its way through bundles of cumulonimbus, like bullets through a crowd. All the while, Nick Valentine kept his eyes on the ceiling.

After the Broken Mask incident in ‘29, silence like this always made him uneasy; the swell of the storm as he liked to call it. Calm just didn’t sit on the tongue right. He couldn’t quite tell why. Maybe it was his old cop instincts rearing their ugly heads, or systemic Institute programming. Maybe he was finally getting old and bitter.

Whatever the case, it made him light up a Grey Tortoise and lean back in his chair, taking a little break from the shrinking pile of files on his desk.

Things had smoothed over so nicely, recently, he’d told his then secretary to head on home early for the night, to catch some shut eye. Now it was just him, his lamp, and the storm. His internal clock kept track of the passing minutes.

_7… 8… 9…_

A low growl of thunder hovered overhead, the old lightning rod on the roof doing its job. Nick tapped the cigarette on the edge of his ashtray.

Things didn’t get this bad in Massachusetts before the war. Sure, it’d get humid, chokingly so, but big storms like this didn’t roll through that often. They usually happened in July, instead; not the dog days. It used to be even worse in Chicago when Nick could remember being human. Seemed like they came every other week, then, but even still, they didn’t drag out like a dame with her hand on a man’s tie. They got over what they needed to, leaving everyone awed and afraid, and planting white hot lipstick marks on anything too tall for its own good.

_10… 11… 12…_

Nick took an instinctual breath, and puffed on the coffin nail, almost with impatience. His Geiger counter wasn’t reading anything. What was taking so long? Zeus wasn’t that busy of a guy these days, was he?

The thirteenth minute passed. A faint 'tap, tap, tap’ sounded on the metal shingles of the agency.

Nick decompressed with the start of a serene smile. There it was. The sweet release.

Fast and hard, pounding on every surface it could find, the rain came and left its marks all over Fenway Stadium, claiming it for itself. And from the rain…

There came a knock at the front door. Nick paused, then snuffed his cigarette.

"Th’ door’s open!” he called through the squall. “Come on in!”

Ten seconds passed before the knob started to turn left on Nick’s side of the door. Whoever came knocking fiddled with the door handle for a moment, hands weak and clumsy, before letting it give way to a beaten and bruised silhouette, torn at the edges from days out in the Commonwealth.

Without warning, lightning struck the roof again, causing the figure to jump and stumble inside, slamming the red door shut in his haste, then lean against it, heaving his chest. Nick readjusted in his chair, focusing his optics on his guest.

Judging by the way the dim lamplight hit him, he didn’t look to be in good shape. His round face lacked any youthful charm with his sunken eyes and stress lined cheeks, left unshaved and coarse from a week or two of neglect. A couple of scuffs and cuts littered his skin, the work of broken glass and clumsy mishaps. His eyes looked about as dead as graveyard soil, bloodshot, but definitely not addicted to anything. Probably coming down from a chem at most, or exhausted at least.

“…d'tective’s agency… Right?” the stranger asked, quiet but still catching his breath.

“Seems th’ new signs are doin’ their job,” Nick agreed, sitting up straight. “What can I do for ya?”

The stranger slowed as the light of Nick’s eyes and the lamp caught his face and tilted his head, eyes narrowing. Nick braced himself for a snide remark, without changing expression. 

“…I was expectin’ you t'be uglier, ” came the eventual response. “Huh.”

The stranger’s breath evened out as he looked him over. A slight smirk came up on Nick’s face.

“Only that 'cause it’s so dark in here,” Nick chuffed playfully. “Have a seat.”

The stranger looked between him and the chair in front of his desk for a moment, then took his hat off and hung it up, shirking his coat off after it. He sat in the chair like a dropped bag of bricks, a hand coming to his forehead.

"Seems like y'came a long way to see me,” the synth observed. “You from around these parts?”

“No, uh…” the stranger shook his head. “I mean… yes, but… I don’t really know anymore…”

He grumbled something incoherent to himself, his meaty hand massaging his temples. Bloody bandages coiled around that hand from the wrist to the base of his knuckles.

“We’ll sort that out later, then,” Nick told him. He then extended a half empty pack of cigarettes and a gold-plated lighter to him, with his exposed hand. “Need a light?”

His guest glanced at his offering, then up to his face, then back at his hand, only to wave dismissively.

“No, I’m, I’m fine, d'tective. Don’t worry 'bout it.”

Nick set the pack and lighter down on the desk, with a nod of acknowledgment. A beat came and went in the conversation, before the stranger looked back up to the detective, seeming to remember his purpose for being there.

“You do cases, right? ” he then asked.

“Depends on the case,” Valentine answered. “I specialize in findin’ lost folks, more than anything. Why, what’s got you all riled up?”

The synth studied him with intrigued eyes, his exposed fingers curling around the width of a new smoke. A flick from the lighter and the cigarette was lit, comfortably perched between Nick’s rubber lips.

“You got an age limit?” his guest prodded, “’R can you go after just 'bout anyone?” 

“So long as y’don’t try and dupe me into it,” Nick shrugged humbly. “I’m your man. How young are we talkin’?”

The synth took another drag, exhaling a ribbon of smoke from false lungs.

“…less than a year old?” The stranger offered tiredly.

Nick raised a penciled-on eyebrow. His skeletal fingers lingered on the middle of the roll-up.

“…you related to ‘em?”

“It’s a he,” the stranger only said. "And… Not really, no. But I’m close enough t'be.”

“Are you his adoptive father? Friend of the family?” Valentine queried.

The stranger didn’t respond immediately, choosing to look down to his elbow instead.

“…Let’s go with th’ second one,” he managed to say, after some thought.

Nick fished a notebook from a pocket of his trench coat and started jotting down what he’d said.

“What happened to him, t’ bring you to me?” the detective prodded, sounding more serious.

“…He…” his client started, then swallowed. “He was kidnapped.”

Silence hung in the air, as Nick wrote this down. When he looked up, his eyes had softened like an old hound dog’s.

“…any idea who did it?”

“There was this guy,” the stranger started. “He… He was bald, with god awful facial hair… Scar on his left eye… Had a real gravelly voice…”

“No name, ‘s far as you know? Valentine guessed instinctually.

The stranger nodded and swallowed again to keep himself coherent, as Nick finished penning down his description. Once he was done, he looked up one more time, eyes meeting his client’s.

“What’s yours, then?” the synth asked, soft.

“…Jus’ call me Hoagie, d’tective. Hoagie Powell.”


End file.
